1. I may have rambled about it to you before Jenna and i left but one of my life goals was to eat raw cashew fruit fresh off the tree. Well yesterday on a stroll to a beach just south of where we are staying we walked under a tree that we realized was a cashew tree and it had ripe fruit on it! It was a goal of mine because the fruit spoils a day or less after being picked and it can only be consumed directly off the tree. Because of this most cashew fruit is turned into alcohol called Feni. Feni ain't so great and neither is fresh cashew fruit but it a was a goal I set and I achieved it! 2. I mentioned the pigs that lived around our guesthouse in ... read more

I was originally going to fill this entry with jealously inducing stories of palm fringed white beaches and the hassles of hawkers, but we stumbled upon something significantly more interesting. While having lunch today we were warned of 'Colour' by a brit expat weirdo, he said 'Chapora takes no prisoners' and that they fill up water guns with this 'colour' and shoot down tourists. He said 'It's like they hate the colour of our skin or something'. We generally take advice from bitter wack jobs with a grain of salt - and it's a good thing we did!!! But we were still a little apprehensive as all day long we would hear 'colour' in the middle of Konkani conversations and the street were eerily quiet. We decided after leaving the beach this morning (complete with shin ... read more

We have to relearn to do everything again here, from crossing streets to taking the train. We have successfully taken the train twice now and have a pretty good grasp of how to do it. We travelled to Aurangabad by an overnight train to go see the ancient Buddhist/Hindu/Jain caves of Ajanta and Ellora. We took sleeper class, which is non a/c and the lowest class with beds. The eight hour train ride cost us about 2.50 each. All the people around us we very nice and peppered Brian with questions about Canada. There were a pair of antisocial European travellers in our berth as well, but we didn't know it until they came to go to sleep. Up until that they stoled other peoples bed so they could read and not have to experience local ... read more

We arrived in NYC FINALLY! 18 hours on a bus, the ride was supposed to take 12 hours but much of the delay was spent stuck in a snow bank on an offramp 2 minutes from the Syracuse bus station. Although uncomfortable i was not annoyed or claustraphobic as kept busy by observe the eccetricities of my fellow trapped bus riders slowly emerge over the boring hours. We were released from the cold kung-fu grip of the monsterous snowbank with the help several plows and local police digging us out by hand. The rest of the ride was problem free and arrived in NYC unscathed and 7 hours late. Our host and friend from hamilton who lives here worked until 5 so jenna and i went for a pleasent stroll around lower manhattan. Because of all ... read more

Just a first post to inaugurate the blog. 14 days until we ship off this rock and i can't wait to spend a bunch of time with everyone before we go. We are having our official send off party at our house, 111 murray st. east. of friday feb. 19th. At 5pm we are having dinner and tea as a kid friendly event until around 8pm. At 9om we start the less kid friendly debauchery fest that goes until no one is left standing. On the 20th there will be a musical event at the skydragon cafe semi- in our honour but mostly a fundraiser for hamilton free skool. If you are reading this and cannot make it out to one of these events and we don't get to see you before we leave that is ... read more